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Ferrari Modulo catches fire driving through Monaco

Accidents happen when you drive a car. The one-off Ferrari Modulo concept is not immune to such a fate, as the spaceship of a car recently caught on fire while out driving. In fact, it's certainly far more likely for an untested concept car to experience more issues than any kind of a production car that's gone through years of testing and development. This particular incident was documented on Twitter by Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus. Jim Glickenhaus and his team recently bought the Modulo concept with the intention of making it road-worthy. The car was originally shown at the 1970 Turin Motor Show. We've since seen videos of it driving around, but this last drive went all sorts of wrong. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. As Glickenhaus details in his tweets, the muffler was responsible for the blaze that damaged the rear of the vehicle. He says that an unnamed firm they're no longer involved with designed the muffler that caught fire. Glickenhaus was prepared for such an occurrence (it does have a Ferrari engine in there after all). Jokes aside, the onboard fire suppression system did its job and extinguished the fire shortly after it began, saving the rest of the car. Unfortunately, it didn't act fast enough to save it from some pretty nasty damage to the rear of the body. Glickenhaus was driving the car through downtown Monaco when the fire began, so we can assume there was an excessive amount of heat building up in there. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Surprisingly, Glickenhaus is continuing to drive about even after the fire. He tweeted a photo just an hour after the blaze showing the scarred Modulo charging up the mountains around Monaco. It's tough to trust a car right after a faulty design just caused it to catch fire, but who are we to doubt Glickenhaus? No plans for restoration were detailed yet, but we imagine the Glickenhaus team will have it looking like new as soon as it can. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. View 19 Photos

'Sensual but also logical': Ferrari's Flavio Manzoni opines on design at London exhibit

Ferrari design boss Flavio Manzoni was in London this week for the opening of a five-month exhibition on the famous Italian brand, part of its 70th-anniversary celebrations, at the world-famous Design Museum. So Autoblog jumped at the chance to ask the man behind the La Ferrari, FXX, 488 GTB and more about his design approach and inspirations, and also what he thinks about designing a Ferrari SUV, or even an EV. Manzoni, 52, is pleasingly Italian in manner and accented English. Passionate and forthright, he has strong views on what makes good design in general and for Ferrari in particular. Having increased the importance of the brand's Styling Centre considerably since becoming head of design in 2010, the now 80-strong team increasingly creates new vehicles in-house (as opposed to using former independent design company Pininfarina). The first project Manzoni fully oversaw within Ferrari was the La Ferrari. He's a firm believer in form following function, "but not in a German way," he says with a smile, citing the side of the 488 GTB, which is shaped by the need to divert air in a certain way around the car and also to look fantastic. As he declares: "You'd never find lines on a Ferrari just for decoration. The scoop on the 488 GTB is sensual but also logical." As another example, he says that his "latest baby," the track-focused FXX K Evo, took a different path from the very engineering-focused Enzo of 2002, designed well before he joined the company. "We worked for eight months with the engineers on the FXX, to keep the functionality and make it beautiful." In Manzoni's job, it would be impossible not to respect Ferrari's incredible back catalog — he owns a Gandini-designed Ferrari 208 GT4, "still very beautiful, but iconic as well" — but he's no slave to the past. "Deja vu is something we don't like," he says with a slightly scolding look. "We don't agree with nostalgia or the need to create a family feeling throughout our range. But a Ferrari must be recognizable without the badge. There are different ways to do this — not just in details like the headlamps, but sometimes in how you treat the surfaces. It's tricky to explain, but it's a feeling." View 12 Photos He's also not keen on following industry trends and has historically spoken out against luxury SUVs. "Every time we work on a new Ferrari, we try to improve on every aspect — including the center of gravity — so an SUV is not a Ferrari," he stated as recently as 2015.

1995 Ferrari F50 Berlinetta Prototipo heads to auction

We've seen our fair share of classic and exotic cars head to auction, but it's rare to see something as special as this 1995 Ferrari F50 Berlinetta Prototipo on offer to the general public.  Prototipo, of course, is Italian for "prototype," indicating this example's status as the very first example of the F40 successor ever built. It saw duty as a development vehicle, auto show star, and media evaluation tool. That's right: if you ever read a "first drive" review of the 1995 Ferrari F50, chances are this is the car your favorite auto scribe was driving.  Per the listing, it was also the model for Shin Yoshikawa's cut-away illustration and several scale models (including those sold by Burago, Maisto and Tamiya) and its likeness was even depicted on postage stamps.  After this world tour, the Prototipo returned to the Ferrari factory for a complete rebuild, after which it was sold (as promised ahead of time) to Jacques Swaters, a personal friend of Enzo Ferrari. It remained in the Swaters collection until 2007, when it was sold to a Ferrari collector in Burbank, California. It has since changed hands several times. While it may have lacked the raw, angular aggression of its F40 predecessor, the F50 was no less stunning (or less special) as a result. Its ferocious 4.7L V12 made more than 510 horsepower and 345 lb-ft of torque, which is still plenty respectable even today, especially considering it weighed just a little over 2,700 pounds. That combination was good for a 0-60 run of just 3.7 seconds on the way to a 202-mph top speed.  As CassicCars.com points out, fewer than 350 examples of the F50 Berlinetta were ever produced.  The F50 Berlinetta Prototipo will cross the block Wednesday, Jan. 15th, 2020, at the Worldwide Auctioneers event in Scottsdale, Ariz.